…unless they were day-glo orange or something. I think MVictors would have notified us if this was the case by now.

there is a distinct resemblance between these monstrosities and the Big Chill stripey-bucktooth-weasel thing…

…in that both were obviously designed by Joad Cressbeckler. Doctor Saturday pointed me to this image of Michigan's uniforms down the years in which the only vague resemblance between the above and something from history is Michigan's 1891 uniforms.

we must have no taste if the Big Chill jerseys sold well enough for this to seem like a good idea.

Let's hope this a practical joke played on the Free Press as revenge, I guess. Get off my lawn.

Like a lot of folks here, I don't think the uniforms look terrible, but I'm bothered by the fact that they've never been worn in M history. Which means these aren't "throwbacks," they're just "alternates," or Adidas's version of Nike's Pro Combat.

But as soon as they mentioned throwbacks, we had to imagine something stupid was going to come out of it. Other than slapping a block M on the front of the home jersey (which may not even be allowed anymore) there's not a whole lot they CAN do to make something unique that they think people will buy.

Let's just not buy these and tell Dave Brandon in an angry barrage of emails that we won't buy these, and they'll go away.

I always through throwback jerseys were supposed to recreate history, not rewrite it or create it out of whole cloth. What was shown in the Freep looks like a combination of the 1891 jersey strips with a M varsity lettermen's sweater. There is no single, past Michigan football jersey that looks anything remotely like it. In contrast, the hockey team uniforms for the Big Chill was based on what the team actually wore in the 1940s.

I think it comes down to what Adidas and David Brandon thinks will sell to the general public. Along with others, I thought Michigan would resurrect the look from the mid-60s by putting numerals on the helmets and block M's on the shoulders. The problem with that from a marketing standpoint is that this type of throwback doesn't differentiate much from the current uniform. If you want to sell them to the typical fan in any number, they're going to have to be markedly different.

I'm sure Brandon will spin this in such a way to say that it combines elements of uniforms from Michigan's plast into a single jersey or something like that. I actually like the idea of unveiling them at night under the lights at Michigan Stadium. The final product, though, might leave something to be desired. The hockey team looked okay with all the stripes on the helmets and on their sweaters--I'm not so sure it's going to look quite so good on the football team.

What's the point of wearing throwbacks when the only difference is in the design of the number, or the lack of a number on the shoulder. Nobody would even know but us diehards, the announcers would crack jokes about it as they had to show the telecast images of the two jerseys side by side and then point out the differences. I think the ones the freep put up look sweet, even if we never wore them, they look like something a Michigan team from the 1940s would wear.

I even like the hockey alternates, my only beef is the nasty yellow but since we've adopted that color for all of our teams I guess it doesn't matter, but I love that logo. It reminds me of the one with the wolverine wearing that sailor or conductors hat or whatever, that one's sweet too, as soon as I saw it, I bought a shirt with that logo on it.

these will look great on Martin as he makes Cave or Golic his donkey come fall. I'll buy whatever the U is selling...but they know that already obviously. I wouldn't mind this in a nice rugby style material like the originals came in.

They seriously suck major ass compared to Nike. Anyone that can't see that by now is blind.

Many of those crazy Nike tech-future/throwback/military jerseys (which are total crap, and which everyone, rightfully, threw up in their mouth in response to) look better than the atrocity pictured in this post.

It was a good idea to sign with Adidas, because they gave us more money. More money than Nike, and more money than they gave any other school.

We would not have won any more games with Nike than we did with Adidas, so the only question left is who will make us more money. To pretend that something almost exactly like this monstrous uniform wouldn't also have happened with a Nike contract is crazy.

Man, I didn't expect to come home and read so many rage filled posts regarding the uniforms. It's just a jersey man. It's the sign of the times.......like luxury suites, night games, and whale-sized high definition video scoreboards.

Aside from the fact that the sleeves on the "throwback" are shorter, the stripes are much thinner, the torso is dark blue instead of tan, they have a large number, and there's no outer sleeveless shirt, they're a very close match.

Ahhh clever comeback, smart ass. While we're at it, I'm sure the jerseys won't be made out of a heavy wool/cotton blend either. And they'll probably wear helmets that aren't made of leather and have facemasks.

Of course, they'll not have long sleeves. They also don't have "TV Numbers" back then like there is today. I was talking from a pure design aspect if you're going to compare them to anything we've previously wore. IMO, they come close to resembling the 1891 ones.

Money. There is literally no other point to the proposition. If David Brandon believed he wouldn't be able to make a profit on selling replicas of these dumpster fires, there would be no discussion of "throwbacks" that don't actually throwback to anything in our history.

Looking on the bright side, it's nice that they don't sport the obese muskrat that the Big Chill jerseys did.

Why mess with the best uniform in college football. I remember a few years ago against lil' bro, when we made that huge 4th Q comeback and the game went into the evening. The uniforms looked so great in the night. These "throwback Uni's" look like complete crap. We are Michigan damn it, we don't need to pull these stunts.

It's not clear when these are from but it's sometime after the helmets went to molded plastic from leather (c. 1937) and before facemasks (c. ???)

The stripes don't look bad here because there not so close together as in the proposed throwback designs. Or it could be that they are longer sleeves that were probably used in a cool fall game day Saturday opposed to the second weekend of September.

You've apparently missed the fact that those jerseys aren't UM jerseys at all, but Princeton jerseys, and helmets. The photo is immediately adjacent to this part of the text:

"Crisler's design for the Princeton helmet graced the cover of Spalding's Official Football Guide for 1938. The photo depicts action from Princeton's game against the University of Chicago, Crisler's alma mater."

For a look at the entire cover from which that small fragment is taken, see this:

In other words, that dumpster fire throwback that Brandon is considering bears the closest resemblance to a Princeton jersey, not a UM jersey. The fact that future UM coach Fritz Crisler was coach of Princeton at the time doesn't alter that fact.

You would think the original idea was to put 3 stripes on the shoulders in reference to our helmet stripes. If we were still with Nike, we'd do that. 3 stripes with adidas is akin to saying Michigan is a shill. But i love the stitching over the M and numerals. I love the look. These will look good on football players.